William J. Hardee

William Joseph "Old Reliable" Hardee (12 October 1815-6 November 1873) was a general of the Confederate States Army in the American Civil War.

Biography
Hardee was born in the Rural Felicity Plantation in Camden County, Georgia, and after graduating from West Point 26th in a class of 45, he was made a Lieutenant in the 2nd US Dragoons. In 1839 he was promoted to Second Lieutenant and fought in the Second Seminole War until struck down by illness and in 1840 he traveled to France to study military tactics. Hardee was a veteran of the Battle of Monterrey, the Siege of Veracruz, and the Battle of Mexico City during the Mexican-American War of 1846-1848, and wrote Hardee's Tactics in 1855 at the behest of Secretary of War Jefferson Davis. Around this time, he also invented the Hardee hat for Union Army cavalry.

On 31 January 1861 he resigned from the US Army while a Lieutenant Colonel, and became a Lieutenant General on 10 October 1862, having commanded Fort Morgan and Fort Gaines in Alabama. Hardee was a veteran of conflicts in Arkansas until 6 April 1862, when he fought in the Battle of Shiloh as a corps commander under Albert S. Johnston. He was shot in the arm and wounded, and when Johnston died from a gunshot to the foot, Hardee joined Braxton Bragg. In the Battle of Perryville and the Battle of Stones River later in 1862, Hardee distinguished himself, nearly routing William S. Rosecrans' Union army in the latter. But after the Tullahoma Campaign of 1863 Hardee could not work with the irrascible Bragg and was transferred to command in Louisiana. He took over from Leonidas Polk during the Siege of Chattanooga and defended Missionary Ridge, which was taken by George H. Thomas' army. Hardee's rivalry with Bragg culminated in President Jefferson Davis' removal of Bragg from command and replacement with Joseph E. Johnston, and Hardee fought under Johnston in the Atlanta Campaign, and later under his successor John B. Hood. He fought in the March to the Sea campaign and his career ended after the Battle of Averasborough in North Carolina and the surrender of a reinstated Johnston on 26 April 1865.

After the war, he was President of the Selma and Meridian Railroad of Alabama, and he died at the family estate at White Sulphur Springs.